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Comment by nprateem | Hacker News Reader

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The article talks about tissue itself emitting light. By what mechanism would this light produce a "bright outline about 1cm thick"? Lamps etc. don't produce such an outline.

It doesn't. If you computed the energy cost to produce this I'm pretty sure you should waste away from shining not to mention that this would be visible to all people not just "sensitive" folks.

The article specifically states that this light is NOT visible to humans:

> UPE, also known as biophoton emission, is a spontaneous release of extremely low-intensity light that is invisible to the human eye and falls within the spectral range of 200–1,000 nm.

Light of those wavelenghts is not visible to humans.

Come on, this is mega basic ...

They actually are 380-750nm is the visible range. That said one lumen is approx 3.8×1015 photons and an LED bulb produces 75-110 lumens per watt. It seems like the original poster meant that we are not capable of detecting this with the naked eye even though it is theoretically in the right range.

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/880/how-many-pho...

https://www.voltlighting.com/learn/lumens-to-watts-conversio...

Humans are able to see single photons, so your (and others') arguments don't hold substance.

I can turn out the light and not see my hand emitting light. Either a single photon isnt enough to be perceptible on average in real environments or something else is defective about the assumption for instance intervening tissue absorbing most or all photons involved.

Clarification,

First I wrote, "Light of those wavelenghts is not invisible to humans."

I wanted to change it to, "Light of those wavelenghts is visible to humans."

But I messed up and it says what it says now, can't edit it further but I meant the opposite thing.

>Downvotes are no surprise here though.

Yeah, HN has become quite hostile, no wonder why their numbers are sinking.

Also, people don't follow through arguments anymore, one reply then disappear, extremely weak strawmams, etc.

You tell people they're wrong and you get "watch your tone" back.

Sad as this used to be a great community!

HN has always had plenty of skepticism towards ideas that are incompatible with mainstream science, because it's just a microcosm of broader society, with a particular focus on tech.

I'd hope people here can be kind and tolerant enough to be accepting of other people's experiences and values, but it's important for all of us to avoid antagnoizing fellow community members with pre-emptive taunts about downvotes.

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I've replied to the comment that started this little flamewar to point out the way they antiagnozed fellow community members with the way they phrased their comment, but we can also make an effort not to be antagonized and be kind about someone else's own experiences. It takes at least two to make a flamewar.

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Downvotes is the natural allergic reaction to alien ideas. Science to many isn't just a theory equal among others, but a religion, a part of their identity that they are very defensive about. The core postulate of this religion is that everything can be reduced to concepts understandable by their minds and replicated in a mechanical experiment, or it doesn't exist. If a few dozens of people could reliably demonstrate that they see the same aura, that would be a disaster for science as a religion, because a phenomenon apparently exists, yet you can't build an aura detector. On the other hand, this defensiveness is necessary to protect the science, for if you start admitting alien ideas without their assimilation, the science will fall apart.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> If a few dozens of people could reliably demonstrate that they see the same aura, that would be a disaster for science as a religion, because a phenomenon apparently exists, yet you can't build an aura detector.

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that science is a religion to many people, but even if it was, I don't think what you said is a necessary conclusion.

If people objectively and reproducibly saw the same aura, it would allow scientists to actually study the phenomenon & try to build an aura detector. Since (AFAIK) this hasn't happened, science can't approach the topic due to the objective basis missing. But you're assuming that these auras would automatically be non-material, which doesn't seem like a fair assumption - given that we don't seem to have encountered any such thing so far.

The God of science is the Theory of Everything that unifies all forces under one set of closed-form equations, that this theory can be understood by our minds, and can be used to predict observations. When these assumptions are declared the final truths, the science morphs into a religion, and when the science is hollowed out with the 'Occam razor', the religion morphs into a very rigid materialistic doctrine.

I believe that aura has some basis in reality, maybe not what we think it is. It's much harder to believe that all the folklore around aura is made up in a consistent way. Auras must be material, if they are real, but it's not necessarily in the thin slice of matter our science is familiar with. It may be something in the realm of neutrinos or that famous dark matter: something very elusive that can be detected only in huge amounts.

Your first paragraph is what I frequently hear when people purport science to be a religion, but you're making two fundamentally wrong assumptions - first most scientists no longer believe a "Theory of Everything" to be able to fully predict observations, and second "Occam's razor" is merely a useful tool, but not a guiding principle of modern science. Sure, there are some people who might follow the ideas you talk about, but there are people who believe anything.

I don't fundamentally deny that something like an aura could exist, but believing it on the basis of common folklore should mean you also believe in many other things - like ghosts, fae and so many other "consistent" ideas. Yet I see no reason to believe it unless there is reliable evidence of it. You said that such evidence cropping up would be a disaster for science - I disagree, it would be wonderful! It would finally be a way for these things to be studied objectively. Does it not give you pause that, after so many decades, no group of people has been able to bring up such evidence?

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